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Comments Posted By Leslie

If anyone can write under an assumed identity, it’s a lot of power. As Frost mentioned, anonymity can be a problem, because it skews the way people express themselves. And, many times, this power is used for bad things. But on the other hand, not being anonymous can do the same thing, but probably to a lesser degree.

Like Honieh mentioned, we do not currently have a true Internet community/nationality. Rather, many are just “users” of the Internet, not harnessing its power to its fullest extent. The Internet is here & available, but it is not being used to its full potential yet. The possibilities are there, though. I definitely see where Frost is coming from, that the fact that the Internet is so anonymous makes it difficult to create a common identity. The very way the Internet is used has prevented it to be seen for its true potential. It’s a tool for personal exploit. For example, every time people go on a website where they must log in, they have the option of creating an alias through the use of a “username,” preventing them from having to truly identify themselves.

The potential is there for the user population to harness the Internet as a vehicle for social change, reform, etc, but in order to do so, we as a collective must come to an understanding that to harness the power of the Internet for the “greater good” of the majority, we must first become aware of its potential. We must understand that, yes, the Internet can be used for these consumerist purposes, but that should be secondary. The Internet could potentially allow the masses to overcome various types of world powers. But, as a mass, we’d have to understand this and “snap out” of using it for mainly consumerist purposes.

I love your use of images with voice over! I always look forward to what’s coming next. Awesome job, & I’m glad I could help out with your final conclusion. It’s tough building a following online! A lot more work & planning has to go into it than you’d expect.

I found myself agreeing with Sunstein and his thoughts that while personalization can be a great thing, it can also have some negative points to it. Going away to college and being put into unanticipated situations can be an important part of the college experience for many people. I can see how making more precise selections could potentially take away from this experience, especially if students begin to take more and more classes online.

With Tapscott’s article, I can see how the traditional university is losing hold on the “monopoly” of educating, but I don’t see the institutions going anywhere or having to change too dramatically any time soon (although online colleges seem to be challenging the traditional educational institution). It’s great that you can get so many lectures for free online now, and that there’s so much more that’s at your finger tips. But, there’s a certain cache to a degree, which can help people get jobs and succeed in life. How long will it take for certain companies hiring employees to look past the need for a degree? Will they ever?

I do think he makes a good point that maybe the traditional method of teaching is not the best way. Other ways should be looked into and experimented with, especially considering how the interactive digital world is changing how society learns and educates itself.

I really liked your inclusion of psychologists in your talk- good idea! Like Alex, now after reading the articles for this week, your travelogue really reminds me of Kurzweil’s search to live forever as information. Like one of the psychologists mentioned at the end, though, I feel like this is just an illusion. This is not living, and not necessarily how I want people to remember me when I do pass on. I’d hope that the living would think about the deceased on their own and would want to go visit their grave to feel connected, rather than just visiting a Facebook page.

Cool post, Jimena! I really like your use of images while you speak- it keeps me waiting to see what’s next.

It is quite tough to get people involved online, as I am finding out, as well- much more difficult than I imagined! I had this idea in my head that everyone would just come flocking to the ice cream website…not so much! It definitely makes sense that the bigger the incentive, the more people interested. I eagerly await to hear more about how your project ends up. It’s definitely learnings that can be carried out to future projects on the web.

Cool post, Juliette! It was nice to actually hear Nina talk, & to hear that she doesn’t particularly care for social media, but understands that it’s necessary to learn about it & for museums to have a place in it. The fact that Nina’s so into the technological aspect of the Internet will probably come to be a very important thing concerning museums’ space on the Internet- finding a way to make it more interactive & creative will I’m sure help to make experiencing a museum/art online more “natural.” Do you know if the Whitney Museum has any more scheduled dates for virtual Twitter tours?

Hey! Sorry for the late response, but I wanted to make sure I answered your guys questions. Thank you all for the kind comments, & I hope this service can help you find some ice cream over the soon to be summer!

@Juliette: That’s a really good idea to use special offers to get people to use the system- I’m sure that will work well! I think I need to get ice cream truck owners/drivers to believe in my cause first, and then maybe I can ask them to take part in that in the future.

@Honieh: That would be great to make shirts! You’re good with the marketing ideas- the sticker seems to have worked at least once…someone followed me & tweeted that he found an ice cream truck at the same time- he had to of seen a sticker on the truck & decided to participate!

@Ryan: Yea, getting the information out & educating people are definitely and important (and difficult) part in making this project succeed.

I’ve actually been noticing that these ice cream truck drivers tend to just hang out in the same place for the majority of the day. So, I don’t think tracking their every move will be such a necessary thing. Also, I’ve been working on getting some ice cream truck drives that actually found me on Twitter to tweet their location using #ictruck. I’ve gotten one to do it so far. But, they’re both a little confused about what geotagging is, so I’m going to need to visit them soon & explain the concept.

I agree though- old tags lingering on the map is bad. Bing Maps (what I’m using now) only posts geotags from the past 3 days. So, since not very many people are using the service right now, 3 days seems to be a good time frame, as to make sure that the map never looks empty. But, if the service does get popular, I’m going to need to find a new way of displaying the geotags on a map.

And you need to get an iPhone please!! I need all the help I can get with this tweeting!!

The sticker pack was $13 for 30 8×11 sheets of stickers. My bf has a printer in his apt luckily, so I’ve just been printing them myself, rather than going to Kinkos. I’ve been able to fit 3 stickers to a sheet. So, not too bad. If you (or anyone else) wants any, I can definitely give you some!

@Alex: I asked & talked to all the ice cream truck drivers first. It would be pretty funny if I just went up to unsuspecting truck drivers and slapped a sticker on their truck & ran away, though! I don’t think the sticker would last too long, though…I agree- it doesn’t hurt to mix a little old marketing techniques in with the new!

@Nadine: Haha, I’m not sure I’ll need any more ice cream after this project- there’s been a couple truck drivers that were nice enough to give me complimentary ice cream. But…then again…you can’t ever have too much of it!

And I agree- hopefully this idea makes searching for a truck into a fun game!

@Jimena: When I first looked at Pipes, I thought the same thing- It was quite scary looking (and still is)! It just takes some playing around with & it’s great to be able to play with other people’s already made pipes. And, as I had explained to you a couple days ago, I am still very much in the beginning stages, and wouldn’t even say that anything has “taken off” or is successful yet. The technical aspects work, but there’s still a lot to be done to get people actually using the service. So, I can’t wait to read your concluding travelogue and hear what you have to say about yours!

Awesome post! Like Jimena, I definitely thought the comparison of visual collages vs musical collages to be interesting- that’s quite an amusing point.

I also thought it an interesting point that even if you had the money to pay to use all of these songs, it would take a long time to get through all the legal steps. It’s a lot of hassle and money for something that’s just done out of fun/amusement/interest in experimentation on a lot of occasions. The legal steps sucks the creativity out of the process it seems like.

I also liked a point brought up closer to the end- that listening to these songs from the past can educate people. It gets people interested in songs/artists that they might not have ever listened to otherwise. I think I mentioned last week- it’s like free a advertisement. It seems like a balanced system to me when left alone on that account- let new artists sample your music, and you might find a new audience listening & hopefully purchasing your music.

Both the reading and the video were so interesting- amazing, yet scary, at the same time. I agree with Enriquez that we really should be putting more thought and research into genes & how humans work- there’s a lot for us to learn and grow from with such research. But, as Elizabeth mentioned- when does it get to be too much? And, will we realize when we’ve gone too far? The presentation kept reminding me of the movie Gattaca & how in the movie if you’re born “naturally”…ie, your parents decide not to change anything in your genes to make you “better”…you’re put at a huge disadvantage in society & are basically deemed “useless.”

Wolf’s piece about Kurzweil was a little more scary than Enriquez’s presentation. His talk about hitting the 3rd “bridge” & surpassing it, thus becoming, “information” is I think what scared me the most. Yes, we might be able to be this “information”- but I don’t think this is “living.” Are you conscious as this information? It doesn’t seem like we would be. It just seems like this information would be our personality, as perceived by others, or by yourself, that would be able to be placed into a machine of some sort, which would then mimic the actions of the original person. But, this isn’t truly being “alive.”

In a way, it almost seems like this is happening now to a degree- it reminded me of Nadine’s travelogue about death & social networking sites. Those of the deceased still have facets of their personality kept alive as information on these social networking sites.

I think that if we do reach this point of “immortality,” and people continue to live longer and longer through vitamins and science, it will reach a point that it will ultimately create a problem with the natural cycle of human life. This could create problems of overpopulation. I also feel like this could be problematic for the very notion of Moore’s Law, which he holds so dearly- if the human population isn’t consistently replenishing itself with new minds, will this mean that innovation will stop moving so quickly at some point?

Awesome presentation! I definitely agree with you that it’s tough to get people’s attention online…I’m finding that out now with my travelogue, as well (and with past travelogues). I agree with Alex’s comments too that it definitely seems to help if the website is branded by a well-known company. Getting past your friends that are in a way “obligated” to help you and reaching a larger audience seems like it will be a difficult task. Let me know if you come up with and ground breaking ideas concerning this!

Awesome podcast- I learned a lot & was great to hear from fellow students. It’s interesting how these social media sites keep those who have passed away “alive.” I wonder if it interrupts how people usually mourn a lost one. Traditionally, you’d have to physically attend a funeral or go visit the grave, or some may go to a temple to pray.

But now, with social media sites, the deceased person’s name can easily pop up on the home page of the site, making you think about the person during times when you might not have. I agree with Jimena that these social sites could make it much harder to let go.

Good job! I was wondering the same thing Nadine was about the censorship of their campaign…I feel like they probably knew about this in the beginning and did it on purpose for PR. Either way, it sends a message out and helps to further their point…and if it was done on purpose, I think it was a very creative, good idea.

Jordan’s campaign using social media seems very “real,” but I feel like the whole “these tampons are cute” almost takes away from that. Like you said, who cares if they’re cute? This campaign isn’t about that- isn’t the campaign supposed to be about getting away from the stereotypical “pink” look and how everything has to be pretty and sterilized? I feel like saying the tampons are “cute” almost plays right back into that. Unless this is supposed to be sarcastic?

When I was getting the map badge, I did notice a little blurb on Silverlight & went searching for a way to turn it off, just out of curiosity, but couldn’t find one. The blurb says, “By default, the Silverlight version previewed above will display to your site visitors who already have Silverlight installed. A JavaScript version will display to users who have not installed Silverlight.”

I just looked through my computer apps and it looks like Silverlight might have actually been installed on my computer at some point? I don’t even remember doing this! But yea, i can see how Microsoft is pushing their plugin…

I’m guessing by your comment that you don’t have Silverlight installed? Does it prompt you to install plugin before seeing the map? Or does it bring you right to the javascript version?

I’ve been thinking about how to get the word out…I’m not quite sure how I want to go about this yet. Maybe send messages out to companies/people on Twitter that are known for tweeting about things in NYC. I’m also thinking of putting the map on a separate site to make it not as cluttered for users (I figured I should do this before getting the word out). I’ve already started trying to promote it through my personal Twitter accounts, but it didn’t seem to take hold yet. I know there’s some services you can use that will find people to follow according to a certain topic…I haven’t looked into this yet, but maybe that’s an option, as well.

Cool video, Ryan! The fact that sampling 1 note from a song can be copyright infringement is so extreme, especially when it can be changed and altered so much. What have been some of the cases along these lines that have gone to court and what were their outcomes? Although not music, this reminds me of the problems another artist Shepard Fairey has had with his interpretation of a picture of Obama.

I guess it also comes down to how the art is being used and whether or not it falls into “fair use.” I would think that Lessig’s example of a mother using a particular song in her personal video would count as fair use.

I did think George Clinton’s comment was pretty interesting though…you pay for instruments to make your song, so why wouldn’t you also pay for the use of other people’s already created songs?

It does sound like it’s time to re-evaluate the law and possibly change it, though. Artists shouldn’t be so strongly punished for their creativity.

In many cases, I feel like this sampling is creating new interest in songs that people might have forgotten about. Because listeners heard a song clip in a mash-up, they might go back and buy the original song. These artists that are being sampled should look at it as free marketing of their song, rather then just trying to take in as much money as possible.

and @Elizabeth- I actually printed it out to read, and don’t feel like I “lost” anything through this. I was able to understand his idea behind his pipe simulation without actually taking part. I’ll have to go back and see if I felt like I “missed” anything. I can see, though, how with more complex simulations, the user would miss out on the experience by just reading vs. playing with the simulation.

I had problems agreeing with Koster’s article. I agree with him that a game is partly a learning experience, but I don’t think that’s always the case, which he seems to make it out to be. There are plenty of games out there where the game would not be good without the story line, such as Final Fantasy and Silent Hill. Those games are largely dependent on the story. I guess it depends on how you define “game,” which he doesn’t seem to do. The story is what gives a game its own identity, which helps the user connect to it, and hence makes the game successful. Much like stories, games can also create a more complex reality, bringing the user into an alternate reality, and can also tap into the users’ emotions.

I did enjoy Koster’s talk of the importance of fun being a part of games, though. I definitely agree with him here- it made me think of the game Guitar Hero and their 3 different levels of easy, medium, and hard (as well as multi-layer competition). I remember actually losing interest in the game, though, b/c of the very reason Koster spoke of- having mastered the medium level, trying to ascend to the hard level was just way too hard…there was too much of a shift in skill level and it became too frustrating, making me lose interest.

Frasca’s article was interesting, but I feel like simulation and stories are 2 different things. Simulation can be more realistic, but stories tap into your empathy more. Stories aren’t as limiting- there are not as many rules; it allows your brain to fill in the blanks. This can lead to a more individualized experience, I feel like, allowing each individual to interact and feel in a larger variety of ways. Simulations, though, can be more limiting- it forces you to experience a particular thing created by the developer. There are pluses and minuses to both, and one is probably better than another depending on the individual situation.

Cool video! I love how it’s a little “creepy”- it plays into the idea of hiding behind a mask/identity to me, which can be a scary thing. I’m a huge horror fan, so I especially liked the beginning! There’s a lot to say in Halloween and Friday the 13th (especially in the 2 more recent remakes) about hiding behind a mask…definitely a fun way of opening up your video and also played into the overall ‘creepy’ feeling of the video.

And, from personal experience..I was watching some of my friends playing around on Chat Roulette one day, and one of the people that popped up on our video was wearing a mask from a horror movie (might have been Mike Myers)…so those shots reminded me of that, as well! It would be an interesting topic to look into- why do some insist on wearing masks/dressing up on Chat Roulette? Is there a specific reason they pick the mask they do? It makes the fact that they’re hiding behind a certain identity clearly apparent, which could be interesting to look into why they wanted this to be so.

Hey Harris- thanks! I did play around with those 2…I had some problems with them, but I can’t remember exactly why…I think part of it at the time was that I was trying to get a specific link to show that would take you directly to a map from the Twitter feed. But as I played more and more with the pipes, I’m not even sure this is a possibility (that’s the question I was posing on the Pipes forum)? I ended up using another pipe to specifically show the original tweet through a url link, where you can from there see the embedded Twitter geotag, which you can click on to bring you to a map (a round about process, but the best I’ve been able to figure out, as of now). That’s where I’m at now. Next step is to try to fix the Yahoo Pipes so it doesn’t RT my retweets (if you go to @IceCreamSpy on Twitter, you can see it’s doing that now)!

Looking back at those pipes now that I have more of a grasp on what I’m doing, they probably would have done what I wanted…I think I was just trying to be too specific with the information I wanted the Pipes to produce. I’m working with a similar pipe to the 2 you posted to use as a map to display in the blog, just with searching for a specific user name (@IceCreamSpy), rather than a keyword.

Hey Ryan- Yea, I ultimately want my tweets to display on a map- that’s coming! I have to say, Bing Maps I am actually finding to be much cooler than Google Maps. They have a whole Twitter App that easily displays tweets: http://tinyurl.com/yg8aept So cool!

But yes, having the actual ice cream trucks with gps attached to them was how this all ultimately started! Last summer, once a week, my boss and I would take an ice cream break at work and go out looking for Mr. Softee trucks. We found them to be quite hard to find sometimes and thought it would be so cool if they had gps attached to them and could track them on a map online before we went outside.

So, this project is basically me trying to find a creative way to make that reality, without going to the company and saying “your trucks should be gps enabled.” But, maybe one day soon they’ll do that! The trucks having gps is definitely more ideal and would be much more reliable. But, this has been a fun/educational process for me so far that I’m sure will be able to be put to use with other ideas in the future (and that I’ll be able to share with you guys, so you can use it!)

I’ve gotten one response, and it wasn’t too helpful- I think I might have phrased my question poorly. He basically said “you need to figure this out on your own.” He gave me some links for the purpose of getting me off on the right foot, but I had already looked through what he had sent me. He did mention that Yahoo Pipes can be slow to load sometimes, though, which was relieving to hear. Here’s the link if you want to check out my question & response: http://tinyurl.com/yl8lev7

That Yahoo Pipes question was my first direct question to the online community. From what I’ve witnessed so far, Yahoo Pipes seems to be a community based around sharing knowledge. A lot of people leave their pipes open to the public, so others can take the pipe and use and/or alter it in some way. So, while I am not looking to be handed the silver platter with the answers spelled out on it, I kind of expected a little more help than what I received.

I’ve mainly been gathering my information just through google searches. There’s a surprising amount of blogs out there where people explain how to do various things. So, it’s been a combination of research, and then taking that knowledge and basically trying to alter it to my needs through trial and error. It’s a very time consuming process and can get incredibly frustrating, but when you do figure something out, even the most minuscule of things, it’s very rewarding.

So far, I have not done any hardcore coding. While Yahoo Pipes mimics coding in many ways, It’s not traditional html (in the sense of me having to manually create the code). I’ve been basically finding various applications that I can use in replace of manual coding. My current use of TwitterFeed to get @IceCreamSpy to retweet other people’s tweets is an example of this.

I had a couple people (Mushon being one of them) that I contacted in the beginning just to discuss the feasibility of me putting this idea into action with my little HTML knowledge. My original idea was to have an iPhone app. But, when that idea was explained realistically to me, it changed to trying to create a website, which, again, when the difficulty was explained, was then changed to using Twitter to aggregate my information. So, from there on out, it’s basically been me trying to figure things out just through Google searches and trial and error.

I’m going to work on getting a page up on my blog where I can list out some steps I took, and to hopefully give you guys some knowledge on using these various apps, so you can use them in the future!

And yea, these past 2 days have not been good ice cream days! Hopefully Spring will come soon & the ice cream trucks will come out of hibernation, otherwise I’ll be wandering the city tagging nothing!

Cool video, Alexandra! The overall tone and your choice of songs/fonts mimic the sense of femininity that are being displayed in the ads you’re discussing. I’d just say that the slides might have been moving a little fast- sometimes it was difficult for me to read your little blurbs.

While I’m sure there’s still a lot of kinks to get out, it’s definitely a very cool thing to be able to access a museum from wherever you are, whenever you want. This could help to change and further educate society, especially for people who cannot easily physically access a museum. It will be cool to see how this develops in the future.

Hey Niharika- cool video. I thought the use of the song for the peace campaign anthem in your video was interesting. As with I’m sure the original nature of the campaign, the rhythm of the song seems to promote a sense of harmony, peace, and overall happiness. Yet, when juxtaposed with the satirical cartoons, it seems to also take on a sense of solemnity. Since I can’t understand the words, I had to rely on the overall tone of what the song sounded like, which seemed to take on a new sense when placed into this context.